Guardian of Democracy, French AAR
This is my first ever attempt of an AAR, I have no idea if I will ever do anything else with it besides start it or whether it'll be of any good. Here it goes anyway.
My goal in the game is to go down with my boots on. I will fight Nazism and totalitarialism in all forms and in all theatres, including intervention in Spanish Civil War. My focus will nevertheless be on economy, research and buildup: I hope I can focus my military well enough to contain Germans and Italians.
So here we go. Action number one is research, to keep up in the tech race I must have all 5 of my tech teams working and fully funded at all times. Here you will see the current technological status of the French Empire:
Priority nro 1 is economical buildup, so quite naturally improved machine tools will be researched. Looking at my navies I notice the need for more screen ships to cover my massive old-school fleet consisting of mainly heavy cruisers, although my advisors say it'll be nearly impossible to gain new advances in destroyer tech as we already are leading the World I still order them to be researched. It'll take a while before my industry is in the shape to build any anyway. Succesfull defence of the Maginot line will require top-notch artillery so it shall be focused on as well. Despite skeptism from general staff work will be started to develop radar technology, it might not work but if it does then perhaps our air forces can manage with less planes and be more cost-effective. While I doubt my manpower doesn't necessarily require mechanization of agriculture I engage in the project just in case as it's better to do early on.
From my navies I scrap one lone obsolete level 1 submarine. Many more ships seem quite outdated as well, especially some of the destroyers, but I don't want to compromise naval strenght before I have newer vessels at disposal. I note that the fleets aren't quite balanced and make a mental note of redistributing them when there are no more pressing matters to attend to.
Production is split in the start quite evenly to consumer goods, production and supplies. It seems there are plenty of steel, energy and rare materials, hopefully some are left after setting up a trade deal for oil to buy some supplies as well to free up some industrial capacity to production. Speaking of production: buildup of 10 new industrial complexes was started, mostly spread around in South-Western France. They should be relatively safe and the provinces had high infrastructure making them lucrative choices. A trade deal with Venezuela was cancelled as there is a chance to get some which give oil for anything else than supplies. It's quite hard yet to make exact balances to the budgets as supplies are shipped to overseas garrisons and trade deals are to be made, I'll just rely on stockpiles for a while to get things going.
Trading starts out well after Ireland decides to sell me supplies in exchange of metal and energy. The amounts aren't big but the direction is right. I make a much bigger deal with UK trading supplies for metals, now I need some oil. Argentina refused, but Mexico and Canada were more receptive. I might have gotten better deals somewhere else, but Americas sounded like a safe source, especially if I get my destroyers up and running. Here is how the budget ended up:
UK offers me some of her technologies, although I can't fully utilize them but only get blueprints that speed up my research I'm very gratefull. Instantly I can persuade the rest of my generals about the feasibility of radar technology as Brits had succeeded in it already. I get a lucrative trade offer from Spain trading supplies to some materials, I take the offer without hesitation. Who knows, that might even help them out with the turmoil they have with their fascists. Looking at my troop distribution I do some tweaking, mostly just to spread them functionally: fast troops with other fast troops to give a quick and deathly punch. The garrison in Djibouti is transported back home, luckily I can use British bases in Egypt as my transports wouldn't have been able to travel that long without refueling. Although I hate to see Italy advance in Ethiopia I don't think East-Africa should be my focus point.
Paraguays have decided to have a revolution, but instead of turning to any radicalist idea they take took the moderate route of Social Democracy. Solid choice in this World filled with extremism. It's time for the French society to reform as well to be more moderate, from two extremist positions we hold it's propably for the best to limit democracy first before openness of the society. After all France does hold various non-national lands in colonies and their happiness is best maintained with openness, while backing away from extreme democracy lets us focus more on military buildup and allows easier usage of pre-emptive foreign policy actions.
A change of politics is best seen in changing people, to let the nation know economy is the key to success changes must be done in the cabinet. Intelligence is directed to focus on industrial issues by Roger Salengro while Maurice Gamelin is dismissed as Chief of Army by Leon Victor Bourgeois. While Gamelin made good forts it's now imperative to have a guy who can reduce the supply consumption and Bourgeois is an expert in that. Besides, it's not like there would be any IC around to build any more forts. Being a democratic society cabinet changes had an effect on dissent, but it'll soon be negated by my consumer good production.
Cabinet after the changes:
This is my first ever attempt of an AAR, I have no idea if I will ever do anything else with it besides start it or whether it'll be of any good. Here it goes anyway.
My goal in the game is to go down with my boots on. I will fight Nazism and totalitarialism in all forms and in all theatres, including intervention in Spanish Civil War. My focus will nevertheless be on economy, research and buildup: I hope I can focus my military well enough to contain Germans and Italians.
January 1st 1936
So here we go. Action number one is research, to keep up in the tech race I must have all 5 of my tech teams working and fully funded at all times. Here you will see the current technological status of the French Empire:
Priority nro 1 is economical buildup, so quite naturally improved machine tools will be researched. Looking at my navies I notice the need for more screen ships to cover my massive old-school fleet consisting of mainly heavy cruisers, although my advisors say it'll be nearly impossible to gain new advances in destroyer tech as we already are leading the World I still order them to be researched. It'll take a while before my industry is in the shape to build any anyway. Succesfull defence of the Maginot line will require top-notch artillery so it shall be focused on as well. Despite skeptism from general staff work will be started to develop radar technology, it might not work but if it does then perhaps our air forces can manage with less planes and be more cost-effective. While I doubt my manpower doesn't necessarily require mechanization of agriculture I engage in the project just in case as it's better to do early on.
From my navies I scrap one lone obsolete level 1 submarine. Many more ships seem quite outdated as well, especially some of the destroyers, but I don't want to compromise naval strenght before I have newer vessels at disposal. I note that the fleets aren't quite balanced and make a mental note of redistributing them when there are no more pressing matters to attend to.
Production is split in the start quite evenly to consumer goods, production and supplies. It seems there are plenty of steel, energy and rare materials, hopefully some are left after setting up a trade deal for oil to buy some supplies as well to free up some industrial capacity to production. Speaking of production: buildup of 10 new industrial complexes was started, mostly spread around in South-Western France. They should be relatively safe and the provinces had high infrastructure making them lucrative choices. A trade deal with Venezuela was cancelled as there is a chance to get some which give oil for anything else than supplies. It's quite hard yet to make exact balances to the budgets as supplies are shipped to overseas garrisons and trade deals are to be made, I'll just rely on stockpiles for a while to get things going.
Trading starts out well after Ireland decides to sell me supplies in exchange of metal and energy. The amounts aren't big but the direction is right. I make a much bigger deal with UK trading supplies for metals, now I need some oil. Argentina refused, but Mexico and Canada were more receptive. I might have gotten better deals somewhere else, but Americas sounded like a safe source, especially if I get my destroyers up and running. Here is how the budget ended up:
January 7nd 1936
UK offers me some of her technologies, although I can't fully utilize them but only get blueprints that speed up my research I'm very gratefull. Instantly I can persuade the rest of my generals about the feasibility of radar technology as Brits had succeeded in it already. I get a lucrative trade offer from Spain trading supplies to some materials, I take the offer without hesitation. Who knows, that might even help them out with the turmoil they have with their fascists. Looking at my troop distribution I do some tweaking, mostly just to spread them functionally: fast troops with other fast troops to give a quick and deathly punch. The garrison in Djibouti is transported back home, luckily I can use British bases in Egypt as my transports wouldn't have been able to travel that long without refueling. Although I hate to see Italy advance in Ethiopia I don't think East-Africa should be my focus point.
January 26th 1936
Paraguays have decided to have a revolution, but instead of turning to any radicalist idea they take took the moderate route of Social Democracy. Solid choice in this World filled with extremism. It's time for the French society to reform as well to be more moderate, from two extremist positions we hold it's propably for the best to limit democracy first before openness of the society. After all France does hold various non-national lands in colonies and their happiness is best maintained with openness, while backing away from extreme democracy lets us focus more on military buildup and allows easier usage of pre-emptive foreign policy actions.
A change of politics is best seen in changing people, to let the nation know economy is the key to success changes must be done in the cabinet. Intelligence is directed to focus on industrial issues by Roger Salengro while Maurice Gamelin is dismissed as Chief of Army by Leon Victor Bourgeois. While Gamelin made good forts it's now imperative to have a guy who can reduce the supply consumption and Bourgeois is an expert in that. Besides, it's not like there would be any IC around to build any more forts. Being a democratic society cabinet changes had an effect on dissent, but it'll soon be negated by my consumer good production.
Cabinet after the changes:
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